Using Bearden’s Rituals to Understand Poetry, Understand Self

In addition to learning the required content for their high school classes, freshmen students must learn to interact effectively with the changing world around them. Ninth graders require a sense of belonging in order to address the uncertainties that are often an every-day part of their lives. This unit uses the idea of Romare Bearden’s rituals to help students better understand themselves as well as the English content. The students will use Bearden’s art as a reference to define ritual and then use that definition as an approach to recognize rituals in their own lives and in poetry. The unit is divided into nine strategies, each one building on the other. It begins with background information about Bearden and continues, allowing students to analyze Bearden’s collages, create a definition of ritual, respond and reflect on the art as it relates to their own lives, and interpret related poetry. The culminating activity is a collage the students create in the style of Bearden, illustrating a ritual from their own lives, society, or a poem.

Susan Sparks

Rationale

When I moved from teaching higher grades to teaching high school freshmen, I was stunned by the very real, daily presentation of the concept coming-of-age. I’ve seen the freshmen struggle to make sense of the negative people and situations surrounding them and to appreciate the good and beauty that is also part of their lives. As they begin to determine their own world views and values and to make choices about the roles of family and friends in their lives, some students rely on the solid, grounded elements of their lives: the people, places, and beliefs that give them a foundation for the choices facing them. Some students, though, become lost, overwhelmed by the world around them and lacking any kind of feeling of belonging. It is these “lost” students that will benefit most from a study of ritual—a focus on the purposefully repeated significant times and images that anchor us to our own pasts, presents, and futures.

Romare Bearden’s works provide the perfect vehicle to study ritual. His collages often show rituals of daily life and seem to emphasize the importance of these rituals in connecting with others.1 I had originally intended to focus on Bearden’s Prevalence of Ritual series, specifically, but expanded the unit to include some of his other works as well. Since the students will generate a definition of ritual based on Bearden’s works, I want them to have a variety of works to reference. In addition, I want to emphasize Bearden’s use of collage as a medium, since the act of creating a collage, using disparate parts to create one image or reflect one idea, supports my goal of the students being able to create a sense of belonging among varied influences and pressures. Bearden’s collages often reflected the uncertain and unstable times in which he lived2 and should consequently appeal to students whose own days are often uncertain and unstable.

The most accessible genre for teaching ritual to early high school students is poetry. The current approach to studying poetry in 9th grade is test-based: here is a list of literary elements, find them in the poem, explain why they are there. While functional, this approach is hardly meaningful, and many students develop the idea that poetry analysis is solely for tests. I want the students to be able to analyze poetry “for the test” but also make significant personal connections to the poetry through the study of rituals. The unit provides students concrete strategies for analyzing poetry, a meaningful context for the students to approach the poetry, and poems about ritual that will appeal to the students’ own ideas of personal rituals.

Objectives

The overarching goal for this unit is for students to use Bearden’s art as a reference to define ritual and then use that definition as an approach to recognize rituals in their own lives and in poetry. In order to meet this broad goal, the unit allows students to answer five essential questions while fulfilling my more specific goals for the students:

Essential Question 1: What is ritual?

Students will use Bearden’s works to come to a consensus definition of ritual and identify types of ritual in our lives. Using visual art to generate a written definition to be used with literary art, poetry, will be a new and challenging experience for most of my students, but using Bearden’s works will help to substantiate the students’ definition of ritual by providing both clear examples and rich connotative elements.

Essential Question 2: What are rituals in our lives?

Students will use the consensus definition of ritual (based on Bearden’s works) to identify rituals in their own lives, or, if unable to identify personal rituals, to identify rituals in the lives of people they know. After spending time developing a definition for ritual, most students will easily be able to recognize personal rituals, and those students who feel they don’t have rituals should be able to at least recognize that they participate in some social rituals.

Essential Question 3: How does collage reflect ritual in content and practice?

Students will create a collage reflecting a personal ritual or a ritual seen in poetry. Students will re-visit the collages used in determining the ritual definition and use Bearden’s works as inspiration for their own collage technique. While reflecting ritual in content, the creation of the collage becomes performative, a ritual in itself. In addition to measuring student knowledge, the collage will provide an enhanced experience for those students who already have rituals in their lives, and, more importantly, it will provide a positive experience for those students who do not usually create rituals for themselves or do not recognize their own involvement in community rituals.

Essential Question 4: How does the idea of ritual affect tone, imagery, narrative, and structure in poetry?

Students will read poetry about rituals and explain how the idea of ritual complements, reflects, or even directs the literary elements in a poem and the meaning of a poem as a whole. This is the crux of our study of Bearden and rituals; while my personal goals may lean toward the enrichment of my students’ interior lives, there is a real necessity to create a bridge between rituals in life and rituals in poetry. Students will see that rituals in poetry serve a significant purpose, just as they serve a significant purpose in life.

Essential Question 5: Why are rituals important?

Students will reflect on the importance of ritual in journals and small groups. Each part of the unit should give the students a point on which to reflect and come to sense of the degree of importance that rituals have or should have in their lives. This reflection will be the culmination of our study using Bearden’s works to understand poetry and self.

Strategies

This unit is divided into nine sections, based on nine main strategies. The unit will last 7-12 classes, depending on what other content is being taught during those days and how many poetry selections are being analyzed. Each strategy is listed in chronological order and builds on the previous strategy.

Anticipation Guide

The anticipation guide will prepare students for the unit by guiding their thoughts towards the content and providing an opportunity for students to engage in a meaningful discussion about Bearden’s art and related poetry before actually studying the content.3 This provides a context for our unit of study.

Students will place a check mark in front of each of the following five statements if they think the statement is true. These questions are only meant to instigate general discussion, not a right or wrong answer. “True art is only found in museums.” “The best art speaks to people emotionally.” “Paint is the best medium for creating art.” “Art is primarily visual.” “Poetry is art.”

After completing the checklist, students can discuss in groups or as a whole class what they checked as true on the anticipation guide. I will encourage students to share their differing answers and explanations. At the end of the unit, students will re-visit the guide and discuss if they would choose the same answers or choose differently based on what they’ve learned. Again, the anticipation guide is a tool to help students create a context for our study of Bearden and poetry.

Online Resources

Most of my students will have no knowledge of Bearden, in spite of his growing recognition throughout our city. In order for the students to accomplish the unit objectives, they will need some general information about Bearden and his works. Students will have three opportunities to obtain information from online sources.

The students’ first exposure to Bearden will be through the National Gallery of Art website. As a whole class, using the smart board, projector, or pdf handout, we will read “Bearden at a Glance”4 and take notes for future reference. This information introduces the students to Bearden, giving an overview of his life and art. As part of this introduction to Bearden, we will also view pictures included in the Romare Bearden Papers at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.5 Students will have the opportunity to see photos of Bearden, his wife, and his surroundings.

Students will further their understanding of Bearden by interacting with his art. In our school’s media center, students will work individually or with a partner to participate in the online activity “Scrutinize a Bearden” from the National Gallery of Art website.6 This part of the NGA website lets students closely analyze Tomorrow I May Be Far Away, a work reflecting Bearden’s time in Mecklenburg County. Students will also experience facets of The Block on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website.7 Interacting with these works also offer the opportunity for students to compare and contrast Northern and Southern rituals.

Students will recognize Bearden’s reputation by looking as a class at the Bearden Foundation website8 and the Mint Museum website.9 The Bearden Foundation has a number of links to other sites, along with a list of current Bearden news and exhibitions. The Mint Museum Wiki10 will allow students to interact with a significant amount of Bearden research.

While looking at the online resources, students are exposed to primary, as well as secondary sources. This could be an appropriate time to introduce or review the difference between primary and secondary research tools.

This strategy is foundational element of the unit; the strategy’s outcome is imperative to the students’ meeting all of the unit objectives.

Students will define ritual based on Bearden’s works, using the concept attainment model, a method for students to identify a specific concept.12 The model requires students “to figure out the attributes of a category that is already formed in another person’s mind.”13 In other words, the students come to identify a concept based on characteristics that the teacher controls. This enables me to focus the students’ definition of ritual on what I think is important for our study while allowing them some flexibility for their own thoughts and opinions.

The students, after looking at the examples of Bearden’s work, should identify the concept of ritual and then, based on what they’ve observed, define ritual. Of course, students may initially come to a slightly different definition, or even a different concept, than what I would prefer, but there are elements in the lesson that will re-direct students if needed. In addition, the definition of ritual generally appears to be fluid, so it is valid that the students may agree upon a slightly different definition. However, the students should come close to defining ritual in the following way: repeated actions that purposefully reflect or create significance in our lives.

In order to guide the students to identifying the concept and definition, two important parts of Bearden’s works will be minimized through the concept attainment model process: his use of collage and his use of African-American imagery. This is not out of disregard for these intrinsically critical elements of his art; rather, it is to focus on the purposes of this lesson. To that end, both sets of examples consist of collages, and both sets of examples include African-American imagery.

Strategy Explanation

Before beginning, I determine the students will identify the concept of ritual, but I do not tell the students.

Students will be divided into small groups of three or four and will be given packets containing pairs of Bearden’s collages. One of each pair depicts ritual, and the other does not. These works can be scanned from books or pasted from various places on the internet. The pairs are as follows: The Burial and Pittsburgh; Sunday Morning Breakfast and Southern Recall; Baptism and Conjur: A Masked Folk Ballet [Harlequin]; Fitting for the New Dress and City Lites; The Carnival Begins and Blue Snake; Evening Meal of Prophet Peterson and Summer (Maudell Sleet’s July Garden); Evening 9:10, 461 Lennox Avenue and Midtown; Monday Morning and Number 9; Palm Sunday Procession and Mecklenburg Autumn: October—TowardPaw’s Creek; Piano Lesson and In a Green Shade (Hommage [sic] to Marvell); Card Players and Winter (Time of the Hawk). The pairs will be labeled as 1a and 1b, 2a and 2b, 3a and 3b, etc. As I direct students to look at specific pairs, I will be showing those same pairs on the smart board. These pairs were chosen based on the possible yes and no characteristics of each work and for their appropriateness for a ninth grade class.

I instruct the students that the goal of the lesson is for them to identify a particular concept based on the information I will give, emphasizing that concept refers to an idea such as honesty, friendship, etc. I then tell them that they will divide the pictures of collages into two stacks, yes or no. The yes stack represents the characteristics of the concept. (This is the part of this strategy that will keep students from thinking that “collage” and “African-American imagery” is a characteristic of the concept.)

As the student groups look at each pair, I identify each pair as a yes or no. For instance, I say: “1a is a yes; 1b is a no. 2a is a yes; 2b is a no,” continuing through each pair. Some teachers may feel more comfortable just giving the students a yes stack and no stack, but having the students see them in pairs first will help them later in their group discussions.

Once students have divided the pairs, they will determine which characteristics are true of the yes stack. After discussion, each group will list the characteristics on chart paper or the smart board for the whole class to see. (If students have trouble identifying characteristics, I will go through the stacks again with them, this time including the works’ names.)

As a whole group, the class discusses the characteristics and makes any changes necessary.

At this time, each small group identifies the concept and then presents to the class. The concept should be ritual, or something similar. I then confirm that the concept is indeed ritual.

Then, student groups will, based on their previous work, prepare a definition of ritual and share with the whole class. Upon discussion, the class will generate a consensus definition of ritual.

Students will brainstorm the following prompt in their writing journals: “What are rituals in our own lives?” Some students may indicate they don’t have rituals; encourage them to identify rituals in the lives of others, or, if necessary, relate the rituals seen in Bearden’s works during the concept attainment strategy. Students then share their brainstorming with their small groups. Students who feel comfortable sharing with the whole class will list their rituals on chart paper. Students may realize that journaling is in itself a ritual.

Think-Pair-Share

Strategy Information

Think-Pair-Share is a way for students to share information in a structured format that allow students to feel comfortable delivering answers to the whole class.14 Think-Pair-Share will specifically answer essential question 4: “How does the idea of ritual affect tone, imagery, narrative, and structure in poetry?”

This strategy will prepare students to connect Bearden with poetry analysis.

Strategy Explanation

Students will be heterogeneously grouped in pairs based on their previous work in this unit. I will tell the students: “This activity will tell me how much you understand the idea of ritual and prepare you for our poetry analysis.” I will then give the students the following instructions: “I am going to ask you a question, and you should answer the question individually on a sheet of paper. Then, when I say ‘Compare your answers,’ you will compare you answer with your partner’s answer. If you have similar answers, raise your hands. If your answers are different, discuss your answers together and come to an agreement on an answer. If you can come to an agreement on the answer, then raise your hands.” At this point, I may even have the pairs share their answers with another set of partners to both encourage collaboration and provide one more check before the pairs share with the whole class.

I will ask the following questions: “In general, a poem about a ritual will probably have what tone?” “Will a poem about rituals most likely have a large amount of sense imagery?” “Do you think a poem about rituals would be in narrative form?” “If you were writing a poem about a ritual in your life, how would you structure the poem?” Even though these questions could have varied answers, having the chance to work with a partner and present an answer as a pair will encourage those students who would not share otherwise.

TP-CASTT

Strategy Information

TP-CASTT,15 a method for analyzing poetry, will specifically answer essential question #4: “How does the idea of ritual affect tone, imagery, narrative, and structure in poetry?”

This strategy is our connection between Bearden and poetry analysis. Students will analyze poems about ritual using the TP-CASTT method and, based on their findings, relate how the concept of ritual develops the poems. TP-CASTT is an acronym for the following: Title (predicting poem content based on the title), Paraphrasing (understanding the literal meaning of the poem), Connotation (focusing on the poet’s word choice), Attitude (determining tone), Shifts (identifying structural and content changes throughout the poem), Title (interpreting the title after reading the poem), and Theme (creating a statement of the poet’s main point).

After annotating the text using TP-CASTT, students will determine how ritual in the poem affects tone, imagery, narrative, and structure.

Strategy Explanation

Students will be analyzing poems from several poets: Gary Soto, Robert Frost, and a selection of Harlem Renaissance poets. Although from different times and seemingly varied contexts, both poets offer poems about every-day life. The poetry texts are thematically and technically appropriate for this age group.

As students analyze the poems, it may be necessary to review types of figurative language and other content-related vocabulary.

Neighborhood Odes16 by Gary Soto relates the lives of children living in a Mexican-American neighborhood. Students will use TP-CASTT to analyze “Ode to La Tortilla,17 “Ode to Mi Parque,”18 “Ode to Fireworks,”19 and “Ode to Weddings.”20 Students will also use TP-CASTT to analyze the following depictions of life by Robert Frost: “After Apple Picking,” “A Time to Talk,” “A Late Walk,” “Flower-Gathering,” “Christmas Trees,” “Going for Water,” “Gathering Leaves,” “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Our last set of poems will be from the Harlem Renaissance; in addition to analyzing the poems, students will discuss the connection between Bearden and these poets and poems: “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay; “A Brown Girl Dead,” “Thoughts In a Zoo,” and “To The Swimmer” by Countee Cullen; and “Night Funeral in Harlem” and “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes. The Frost poems and Harlem Renaissance poems may be found in a number of anthologies or on the internet.

I will model the TP-CASTT strategy using “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” After completing the TP-CASTT annotation, I will show students how I would answer the following questions: “How does the ritual of stopping to watch the snow affect the speaker’s tone? How does this ritual affect the imagery of the snow, woods, frozen lake, etc.? How does this ritual affect the narrative itself? How does this ritual affect or reflect the repetition in the last two lines? How does this compare with Bearden’s Winter: Time of the Hawk?” I will also discuss with the students the connection that poets often establish between content and structure in their poems, emphasizing that this connection is usually purposeful, not something that teachers “make up.”

For the remainder of the poems, students will work in small groups, partners, and individually to use TP-CASTT to annotate the Frost, Soto, and Harlem Renaissance poems and then determine how ritual in the poems affects tone, imagery, narrative, and structure.

Words and Imagery Connection

This activity will specifically answer essential question #4: ““How does the idea of ritual affect tone, imagery, narrative, and structure in poetry?” and essential question #3: “How does collage reflect ritual in content and practice?”

Students will read and use TP-CASTT to analyze Bearden’s untitled poem21 about his memories of his grandfather’s house. As part of their analysis, students will identify sense imagery in the poem. For instance, sight imagery includes “a garden with tiger lilies”22 and “Waving a white apron.”23 Touch imagery could include the reference to the “ever changing winds,”24 and sound imagery could include “Grandfather tells me my grandmother cut it”25 and “hear the whistle of night trains.”26 Some students may even identify smell imagery in the tiger lily27 and magnolias.28 After identify the imagery, students will answer the following questions: “Why does Bearden use these images? How do these images support the point he is trying to make?”

Students will then work in small groups to create a collage based on the imagery in Bearden’s poem; in other words, students will answer the following question: “If Bearden created a collage based on this poem, what would it look like?” By analyzing the imagery in the poem and creating a group collage based on the poem, students will reinforce for themselves the connection between words and images.

The act of creating a collage is a performative act;29 in other words, as students create the collage, they are themselves performing a ritual. As students create a collage representing their world, they are actually contributing to that world. Based on the idea that we create our own realities,30 creating a collage could actually be a ritual for a student who doesn’t recognize rituals in his or her own life.

Students will create a collage reflecting a personal ritual or a ritual in a poem we have read. Students will be familiar with Bearden’s collages from the online resource and concept attainment strategies. Creating a collage will allow them to apply what they’ve learned from the unit and participate in a ritualistic experience. Giving students a choice between a personal ritual and a ritual we read in a poem will make insecure students or very reserved students more comfortable with sharing their collage.

Strategy Explanation

Students will be given the following assignment: “Create a collage about a personal ritual or a ritual you read about in a poem. You may use your own board or get one from our class. You may use any type of material. On the back of your board, identify the ritual and if the source is personal or poetic. You may also include any other pertinent information you’d like for the teacher or class to know. You will present your collage to the class and write a reflection on how creating your collage was a ritual experience.”

I will show students my own ritual collage and explain the inspiration, the source from my own life, how I decided on materials, etc. This should give students some direction without limiting their own ideas. We will also discuss the types of materials that Bearden used in his collages, so that students will see the broad range of materials he used.

Students will brainstorm possible collage ideas in class in their writing journals. Individuals may choose to share ideas with the whole class.

Students will primarily work on collages at home. Materials will be available at school for students who need them.

Students will present the collages in class and post collages in school hallway.

Students will write a short reflection in their writing journals on the following: “Explain how creating your collage was a ritual or ritual-like experience. “

Students have been working in collaborative groups throughout the unit; however, collaborative groups are especially effective as a culminating activity. In small groups, students will discuss why rituals are important, considering their importance to Bearden, their importance personally, and their importance in the poetry we studied. Groups will share their ideas with the whole class and list their ideas on chart paper or the smart board. This activity concludes our unit by allowing students to synthesize what they’ve learned about how Bearden’s rituals help them to better understand poetry and themselves.

Appendix

Implementing District Standards

This unit implements the following Common Core State Standards in Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language:

R.9.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text.

R.9.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text.

R.9.5 Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, organize events within it, and manipulate time create effect.

R.9.7 Analyze the representation of a subject in two different artistic mediums.

W.9.9 Draw evidence from literary texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

SL.9.1 Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners.

SL.9.2 Interpret information presented in diverse media formats and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, or issue under study.

L.9.4 Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrased, choosing from a range of strategies.